


When In Tunnels, Avoid The Light

by delicious-irony (deliciousirony)



Series: SPN Writing Prompt Challenge [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Hates Witches, Fairground, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Supernatural Writing Challenge, Supernatural Writing Challenge February 2016, Valentine's Day, Witches, cat!dean, tunnel of love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-24 01:38:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6136840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deliciousirony/pseuds/delicious-irony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Valentine's Day, and a fair's set up just outside of Lawrence. Castiel wants to go with Dean and he invents a monster that is supposedly living in the Tunnel Of Love. They go on the ride, but when the couple in front of them starts screaming, Dean ends up chasing a surprisingly real monster. Until he disappears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When In Tunnels, Avoid The Light

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the February 2016 round of the ****[SPN Writing Challenge](http://spnwritingchallenge.tumblr.com). The theme was 'Valentine's Day' and the prompt was 'tunnel of love'.  
>     
> [Find this story on Tumblr](http://delicious-irony.tumblr.com/post/138471578208/ice-skating)  
> [Find me on Tumblr](http://delicious-irony.tumblr.com)
> 
>  
> 
> This got way longer than I planned, but it will be finished, I promise.

The fair had set up just outside Lawrence only a couple of days ago. Sam and Dean had been surprised that a fair was travelling in winter, but so far it had been the mildest one in a long time. There was no snow, the sun was out most days, and the temperature was more reminiscent of April or May than February.

Castiel had been excited to visit the fair, especially once he had found out that amongst the attractions was something called a Tunnel of Love. Sam had explained that this was where people in love went to make out, although a not insignificant number of customers would probably include teenagers. The main thing Castiel took away from this talk was that taking a ride in it was considered romantic, and that Dean would therefore never join him for a ride. So Castiel and Sam invented a monster that was supposedly picking people off who were taking the ride.

The idea was as brilliant as it was simple: get Dean there, then tell him that there actually was no monster, see how he took that, and if he didn’t storm off, hacking his way out right through the ride’s wall, then Castiel would proceed to cautiously inform Dean about his feelings for him. It was a genius plan, but then, it had been developed by a genius and one of Heaven’s best strategists. Sam would be waiting outside with a camera. If played right, Castiel and Sam could pass the entire thing off as a massive prank if that was what it took to save Dean’s and Castiel’s friendship.

Surprisingly enough, the plan actually did work. For whatever reason, Dean agreed to go on the ride with Castiel - according to Dean, he only did it because Sam simply was not an option. Dean did not suggest Sam joining Castiel, though. According to Sam, this was a very good sign. According to Castiel, it was merely because Dean hated research so much that pretending to be on a homo-romantic date with Castiel was actually the lesser of two evils. This idea was heavily challenged by Sam, but while Castiel thanked him for his concern and support, his opinion was not swayed.

“Why do you do it then, Cas, if you don’t expect any success?” Sam finally asked, exasperated.

Castiel shrugged.

“Closure. I hope… But if he doesn’t return my feelings, and frankly, I think it exceedingly likely that my affections are not returned, at least I’ll know.”

Still, once the plan was set into motion, everything went smoothly. At least up until that point where Castiel had just opened his mouth to tell Dean about the monster’s fictionality.

Castiel had just drawn a deep breath and was about to finally put an end to years of pining, when the girl in the little heart-shaped wagon in front of them started screaming bloody murder, promptly joined by the boy beside her. The girl struggled to get out of the car and took off, immediately followed by Dean, who had vaulted over the closed side of the car, and by her companion, who had lost precious moments unlocking the door. Dean disappeared into the dark background of the ride. Castiel closed his mouth again.

Outside, Sam had a photo of the girl storming out the side door, taken in the assumption that Castiel’s endeavour had not been crowned with success and that Plan B Ensure Friendship’s OK had been kicked into motion. Dean, however, was nowhere to be found.

Dean’s cell phone went to voice mail. Questioning every single person working at the fair lead to nothing. Shellshocked, Castiel and Sam finally went back to the Impala and Sam dug out the spare car key he had secretly had made a few years ago. Dean would go berserk if he knew, but Sam had figured, with a healthy dose of pragmatism, that if it came down to it, he would rather listen to Dean wail about his car, than die because they couldn’t unlock the doors and Dean wasn’t around.

Back at the bunker, they started calling hospitals, police stations and everyone else they could think of who might be able to help. They dug into any information on the fair they could find, anything connected to any of the stands and rides and their owners. Soon they discovered that, occasionally, people would disappear for a couple of days. Some cross-referencing of newspaper articles with police reports and some phone calls to those police stations under the cover of the FBI established that, apart from the long absences that had prompted the articles and the missing person reports, there had been a couple more that had only lasted a couple of hours or until the next day.

Castiel drove back to the fair to keep looking around. He was afraid of what might have happened to Dean and his stomach twisted in worry about Dean’s continued absence. He had had no chance to confess his feelings, and, more importantly, guilt was eating away at him. After all, he had wanted to come to the fair, to go on a stupid ride. Dean’s disappearance was on him. Never had Castiel missed his grace quite like this before.

Another thought wormed its way into Castiel’s head as he thought about what had happened in the tunnel. The car had been small, and there was no way to avoid their entire sides touching as they sat next to each other. Maybe Dean had figured out what Castiel had planned? How he felt and what he wanted to say? Maybe Dean had taken off because of that? Or if he had not left because of that, maybe it was the reason he stayed gone? In his head Castiel knew that most likely this wasn’t the case, but there was no reasoning with his stomach or his heart. He felt nauseous.

When Dean did not return the next day and there still wasn’t any lead as to where he might be or what might had happened, Sam and Castiel started worrying about the fair moving on before they would be able to find Dean. Thankfully, the afternoon of that day also brought heaps of snow, and the fair decided to stay put for the moment and wait it out.

The atmosphere in the bunker deteriorated steadily, even though Kevin had offered his help as well. They had briefly discussed calling Crowley, but in the end had decided against it as too risky. Finally, Castiel could not take it any longer and headed for the front door to go outside for some fresh air. When he opened the door, he was met with a blast of snowflakes to the face. Apparently it had not only kept snowing; it was snowing even harder than throughout the day. Castiel took a deep breath and was about to close the door again - the temperature had dropped even lower as well and it was absolutely freezing outside - when a soft mewling sound made him look down to the side of the door. He gasped in surprise.

A big orange tabby cat was cowering in the corner next to the door, rolled up as tightly as it could, and shivering violently. It tried to stand up on wobbly legs and drag itself over to Castiel, avoiding putting any weight on its front left paw, but before Castiel could react, its legs buckled and if fell back into the snow. Castiel could see that the fur was entire soaked through. The cat’s green eyes went wide with fear and it meowed again, its voice fearful and urgent, before all strength seemed to leave it and it closed its eyes.

This finally spurred Castiel into action. He gathered the cat in his arms and took it into the bunker without a second thought.

  


**Author's Note:**

> I also have a small art blog, delicirony.tumblr.com \- my art tag is #delicirony. If you’d like to have a look, you can find [my artsy stuff on AO3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/deliciousirony/pseuds/delicirony) too.


End file.
